What is *worldbuilding* for?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Finality of resolution doesn't happen in this case until the PC either becomes king or fails beyond hope of redemption. All other intermediate resolutions are just that - stepping stones.

Which brings up a question: in your system can a PC ultimately outright fail at its intended goal, and if so, what happens? Example: if my goal is to be king, and we get to some climactic point that determines whether I get the throne or not, and I somehow blow it either by bad dice luck or follish actions - what then?

Of course you can fail! Addressing the dramatic needs of the character is not the same as a plot where the character always succeeds. It would be perfectly apt for this goal to slip out of the character's fingers. Probably, if its really done in a cool way, it will represent the resolution of some sort of character flaw or a price that the character paid at some point, that is a consequence of their previous actions. A key NPC will betray them because the PC injured her, or maybe the character will realize some higher goal or aspiration. Maybe giving up his dream to be king because it is in the better interests of the people, and 'Nobility is more important than Kingship' or something. It is always possible to address various themes in a game like this too, maybe such a thread runs through the whole game! It could be the REAL underlying conflict, between duty and ambition, etc.

In terms of finality of resolution, I look at it much like action movies. Again I always go back to Raiders of the Lost Ark as sort of the archetypal pattern. There ARE reverses, Indy and Marion find the location of the ark and then the Nazi's show up and take it away. In game terms that might be a FAILURE to find the ark (a failed check). It would be an example of 'fail forward'. A true success doesn't get reversed. When Indy gets the head of the Staff of Ra, he's achieved something that is never reversed. Even though the bad guy has half the inscription burned into his hand he's still missing the final clue. This presumably was acquired in game terms by successful action resolution.

In terms of quest to become King, the PC would maybe undermine his rivals, and each one so disposed of would no longer represent a threat. They wouldn't pop back up and suddenly be in contention again. The NPC might still play another part in the action, but only as a defeated rival. There wouldn't be some unrevealed backstory that subverted or reversed finalized actions. If such an NPC DID become a rival again it would be as a consequence of specific events which happened within the continuing narrative based on further actions and checks made by the PC/player. It would be EXPLICIT, although it is perfectly fine if the narrative explains it in terms of factors the PC didn't know about at the time. The key is that in no case would the defeated rival simply reappear due to factors happening offstage which didn't involve the players in any way that they could understand or have a chance to control. At most it might be something like "You hear word from your spies that Baron X is attempting to raise an army in his home province! What do you do about it?" or something like that. If the answer is 'nothing', well maybe the guy becomes a threat again, but in game mechanical terms its really a NEW threat.

It can be an event within a larger story, or a small story (or self-contained chapter) unto itself.

Sure it is. It just takes longer to unfold.

Similar to watching a TV series like the original Star Trek where each episode's story was wound up within that episode, vs. watching a series like the new Battlestar Galactica where the story - though always lurking in either the background or the foreground - takes four complete seasons to fully unfold.

In terms of games you can do either one of these things with Story Now. Its merely a convention of the specific game and table conventions as to how you approach RPG play. You could establish a game with episodic characters where each independent story arc resolves in one session if you want, there are games like this. In fact I'd say they are almost entirely story telling games of some sort. As soon as you invoke persistent characters you start to have longer-term play. In Star Trek Captain Kirk is bounded in his actions by the dictates of Star Fleet. In a purely episodic game he could just ignore them, but in an ongoing game he has to factor in the consequences of defying orders.

One way to play an episodic Star Trek would be to make the PCs less significant characters. Instead of playing Captain Kirk, you'd play some minor character, or even a character that appears only for a single episode. The players work out the story for the visit to that 'planet' (or whatever it is) and the resolution of those character's interests, and then next time MAYBE they reuse some of them, and maybe not. A TNG RPG OTOH would have the PCs as ongoing characters, probably always crew members or some such. They could be the ship's officers or lesser characters depending on the setup of the game, it wouldn't really matter too much. I'd think being the bridge crew would be the standard setup. This is how the old FASA Star Trek game worked. It was a pretty good game actually, the semi-episodic format of classic Star Trek lent itself pretty well to a series of adventures. I wouldn't say it was a Story Now type of system though, more similar to CoC or something like that.

And in so doing moves toward establishing what fiction is going to be shared: we're not going to be sharing any fiction about taking down the Baron, as that fiction isn't of interest.

As you may have gathered, I rather disagree with this statement.

Exactly, you aren't interested in Story Now. It was just posited as the starting point for the discussion of World Building at the start of the thread.

The content in (1) reflects less player agency than the content in (2) does. In and of themselves they are equal statements - in each case the player is looking for an item for a specific reason but has (I must assume) no idea what that item may be or even if it can be found in this town, and in eac case the DM is trying to jumpstart that process. Both speak to the agency exercised by the player in setting that goal, to find an item to help his brother out. But (1) railroads the player straight to the (or a) possible solution, while (2) gives the player the agency of choice in how to approach the search for the item.

I disagree that there is any 'railroading' in (1). The player established the terms of his agenda, not the GM. How could it be railroading? The game is about what the player decided it would be about. All the GM is doing is describing a scene in which the player's agenda, what he WANTS the scene to be about, is realized. It could hardly be MORE a matter of player agency, unless you want to go to a 'conch passing exercise', which IMHO isn't really even an RPG in most cases (IE players author content jointly or something like that).

(2) OTOH is an example of GM agency at its utmost. The GM is deciding where the character is and what he's engaging with, and there is no regard there for any player input, at least not in any formal explicit way. If the GM considers what the player wants it is entirely HIS choice to engage with it, or not. The player can choose the action of his character, but he isn't even guaranteed to be able to acquire enough information to make a choice that relates to his agenda, let along actually engage it directly. He may well simply be left engaging with some GM constructed plot and setting elements that were created without any reference whatsoever to what he wants to do. This is in fact the definition of 'sandbox'! Sure, the players can then start to try to construct some kind of engagement with their own interests, but they're STILL dependent on the GM to go along, and the GM has potentially infinite reserves of plot power (IE arguments based on some sort of 'causes') with which to move the plot in any direction he desires.

Now, in (1), the players agency is NOT absolute, the GM determines the details of the scene frame and thus initial fictional positioning at each point, BUT the scenes will address things that interest the players. In (2) there's just no guarantee of anything. While a 'good GM' may find it wise to give some credence to player agendas this is by no means universal nor consistent IME. I've played in games where the action followed a direction almost entirely of the GM's choosing. Skillful GMs CAN very definitely make this work, but it isn't the same at all as (1).

(1) certainly saves a lot of time if you-as-DM already know the feather is the key...but in theory you don't already know that, and in fact the feather turned out to be a false lead.

As a player, I know my answer to (1) would be "How did I get here, who is with me, why am I here, and what else is around me?" where for (2) it would be some version of "I look for information via rumours, sages, and bardic tales; and ask my erstwhile companions to please do likewise on my behalf".

Again, I don't think that Story Now dictates that the PCs can never be in the position of looking for information. Sometimes, given the positioning they are in, it may be a fine option. I will say again that in my own rules system there ARE 'interludes', which are really designed for this sort of thing (sometimes an SC works too, it depends on whether there are significant stakes or not). Usually what I find is that the dramatic pacing and player signals will indicate when such a point has been reached. Often its quite obvious, and something like a montage is generate. The character acquires some training, goes up a level, establishes some social contacts, arrives at a new location, etc.

If the DM hasn't told me what I need to know (which in this case is perfectly reasonable as there's no good reason yet for my PC to know it) then I have to get that information somehow. It's called exploration, in this case exploration of the game world; and it's a fundamental element of most fantasy RPGs.

Lanefan

Exploration is fine, but most explorers have a goal in mind. At the most extreme end of the spectrum it might be 'play tourist', but then chances are, after some 'tourism montage' perhaps, the action arrives at "and as you step out of the carriage 4 scruffy men armed with daggers jump out of the ally and demand all your money!" Are you going to surrender the cash needed to be a tourist or fight? Or maybe its a little more subtle, the police knock at your door. "Why were you in the Louvre this morning? Did you see this man? Come down to the station with us right now!"

I mean, sure, if you REALLY want a game about being a tourist, I'm not averse to that. If its PURELY that, then maybe a Story Now type of system isn't ideal? I just think these cases are pretty contrived. Having played RPGs of all sorts for decades I can certainly say that there should be some 'meat' and I'm going to want it to be the cut of meat I ordered up. I WANT the GM to be creative and produce evocative scenes and generate plenty of backstory and revelation and whatnot in play, I just don't want to have to deal with endless wandering around in irrelevant details. Only so much fiction can be generated in each gaming session. Lets make it relevant fiction, IMHO.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm sure that there is increased depth in other areas of player facing games. Exploration of character being one of them.

And that is a loss of world depth.

I think it would be.

I'm not CONVINCED BTW that Story Now worlds 'lack depth' that is present in other games. I think, in practical terms, there's not a big divide there, but the subtopic is "What is the ideal dividing line between established elements and an open 'blank slate' world?" (maybe you can formulate the question more precisely or in a better way, feel free).

I think genre, and tone, do a LOT of work here. If we're playing a game of Noire detective stories then there's likely to be a Moll, a Damsel in Distress, a Hardbitten but Romantic PI, some bad guys, a fairly direct-seeming surface plot linking them together, and usually a nasty plot-twist somewhere along the way. There are likely to be subthemes of romanticism, betrayal, 'life is cheap', a sort of cynical world where people do things for selfish reasons, etc.

So, a GM running this game would have access for scene framing to an urban landscape, characters such as cops, detectives, thugs, probably various women who play the parts of romantic interest and/or victim (and/or betrayer) etc. They will appear in the various scenes as needed, probably starting with the classic "PI in his office having a drink while contemplating his eviction notice when a damsel walks in" or something along those lines. The exact details would depend on who the characters are, and how they're described. The choices would be fairly limited in this genre though, as its a pretty niche one.

I wouldn't think there would be a HUGE benefit to inventing endless details about 'the city'. It would be mostly urban backdrop. There might be a 'bar', an 'office', some dark alley, a warehouse, a few street scenes, etc. They can generally be described without needing to refer to the exact layouts of the neighborhood, roads, etc. Now and then it might be useful to know some physical details of a location in order to adjudicate action (fictional positioning) but mostly that's going to exist so as to serve the dramatic needs of the story (IE if the main character wants to slip out the back way then the bar has a back door and a check will resolve whether or not he makes it to the back alley without being intercepted).

Obviously this sort of game WILL have some kind of central plot points that engage with the 'detective fiction' motif. There will be a 'murder' or 'robbery' or something that needs to be solved. The need to resolve this plot element will help to drive the scene framing. I would say that in this kind of game the GM would be very likely to establish the parameters of this element at the start in his mind, so that any clues and developments are logically connected to it. This is a genre constraint essentially, film noire plots are generally logically plausible and fairly coherent, and resolving the 'mystery' is, if not an actual player goal, at least part of the convention they are participating in and a structure-producing device. So, as a GM I would invent the main participants in the 'crime', its motivation, how and where it was executed, etc. I might not nail all these things down in ironclad details though. For example you could invent witnesses, alter or invent some of the details where it fits into the plot, etc. I think you'd also likely have plot twists and such in mind from the start, but these things could well be invented or altered on the fly if the narrative moves in a different direction than envisaged.

So, for this example, there's likely SOME 'world building', characters are invented, locations defined, and some plot elements mapped out, ahead of time. I think this is probably the sort of case that is most amenable to this kind of prearranged elements. Most other genre can be a bit looser.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is highly disingenuous of you, as I didn't create the example and I was responding to your use of it exactly how you used it. It's difficult enough having this discussion, as you're now reacting as many did to @pemerton's original points in a very defensive manner to analysis of your preferred playstyle. This seizing on my using the example YOU used to try and paint me as being unreasonable isn't appreciated.


Sigh. Nothing in my analysis says you can't do this. I'm pointing out that the primary focus of play is to cut to crisis. I think it's disingenuous to try to intimate otherwise.

I only created the 'example' in order to exemplify how far from the norm of RPG play it is to posit characters who sit around doing nothing. IIRC it was perhaps [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] who originally asked a question like "what happens when the players don't want to engage in any agenda" and the line of discussion from there was in the vein of "why would this make sense as a game?" I think I have also touched on this again since you posted. Anyway, I don't think I was trying to misrepresent anyone's argument. I was simply drawing the logical inferences from it. If players refuse to really PLAY, then clearly the game will not work in a Story Now sense. It won't REALLY work in ANY sense, though I guess in a GM-directed game you can sort of have a kind of passive play

"Crisis" is the point at which the player's agenda is challenged. The framed situation is supposed to challenge the player's agenda in a way that will reveal something about it. The feather in @pemerton's example directly challenges the players belief: is this feather what I need. A success moves toward that goal, a failure causes the feather to be cursed -- which the player now needs to deal with before returning to his agenda. This is a crisis point -- either you succeed or you're dealt a serious setback (or failure) to your agenda. Take a look at the dictionary definition of crisis -- it doesn't mean "catastrophe" it merely means a point at which the future hinges. That seems an excellent description of the kind of things a GM is supposed to frame the player agenda into.

Both you and @pemerton have misunderstood the use of crisis and assumed some form of catastrophic situation. The feather was a crisis -- the resolution of the player action created a decisive change in the fiction. That's what a crisis is. I know it's a shock for someone to use the actual definitions of words in this thread, but that's me, I'm a rebel.

OK, fair enough, I accept your definition of crisis. I just don't think that every scene is necessarily high stakes or has to address the primary belief/goal/agenda of the PC in the most head first fashion. In fact the specific belief of the PC in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s example was kind of a 'secondary consideration', find something to save his brother before leaving town. So it was already kind of a side quest sort of thing. If it failed, then it would be addressed, but the primary goal of saving his brother would remain.

Anyway, scenes can be pretty incremental. They might only involve some information gathering, maybe even just basic recon. Another factor is that there are usually multiple PCs, with somewhat disjoint agendas. So in any given scene it is usually more likely than not that a given player is simply supporting someone else's agenda. Ideally the scene speaks to everyone in SOME degree, but it may be pretty tangential to some character's interests.

So, from a player perspective, things may be only episodically really a crisis for THEM. Imagine a 4e game. Each level of play notionally consists of 10 encounters with 1 or maybe 2 long rests separating them into 'adventuring days'. Lets imagine that each day fully engages the agendas of 2 of the 5 PCs (the rest perhaps resolve a minor quest). On average each character will engage directly slightly less than once per level of play, or maybe a bit more than that depending on details of pacing and structure. Lets call it 'once per level'. This, IME, is about how 4e works. Each character gets the 'spotlight' one time at each level of play, and engages in a crisis at that time, maybe roughly every 10 encounters will be about them specifically and exclusively. The rest of the time they'll be supporting cast to a certain extent.

Then the description of Story Now is a lie. Considering it's not, this is really just an example of you not grasping what I mean by crisis. And what I mean is the dictionary definition of the word. The job of the GM in a Story Now game is to go to the action and put the player's agendas into crisis. This leads to the snowball of play where consecutive crises create a memorable game.

OK, I understand what you are saying. I'm just saying that, in practice, what this amounts to is not that a character is at some pivotal point, a 'make or break' in every scene. As I noted above, this is probably typically in actual play not much the case at all. Each scene is significant to someone and will define where their story goes next, but often the 'crisis' may be pretty tactical in nature. Consider LoTR, the Fellowship could go over Caradharas, through the Gap of Rohan, or into the Mines of Moria. They eventually chose the later option. No doubt a different choice, assuming it was successfully resolved, would have led to a similar story later on. The fundamental shape of the conflict wasn't altered by the failure to use the Pass of Caradharas, Frodo still needed to travel to Mt Doom and cast the One Ring into the fire.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I only created the 'example' in order to exemplify how far from the norm of RPG play it is to posit characters who sit around doing nothing. IIRC it was perhaps [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] who originally asked a question like "what happens when the players don't want to engage in any agenda" and the line of discussion from there was in the vein of "why would this make sense as a game?" I think I have also touched on this again since you posted. Anyway, I don't think I was trying to misrepresent anyone's argument. I was simply drawing the logical inferences from it. If players refuse to really PLAY, then clearly the game will not work in a Story Now sense. It won't REALLY work in ANY sense, though I guess in a GM-directed game you can sort of have a kind of passive play

But you did try to paint me as unreasonable for following the example.

OK, fair enough, I accept your definition of crisis.

You mean the actual definition of crisis. It's not mine.

I just don't think that every scene is necessarily high stakes or has to address the primary belief/goal/agenda of the PC in the most head first fashion. In fact the specific belief of the PC in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s example was kind of a 'secondary consideration', find something to save his brother before leaving town. So it was already kind of a side quest sort of thing. If it failed, then it would be addressed, but the primary goal of saving his brother would remain.

You're contradicting [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], now, as he's said it was a player belief and not a side quest. I agree with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] -- the player gets to pick a limited number of things she cares about, it's not the GM's place to rank them or decide that this one isn't that important.

Anyway, scenes can be pretty incremental. They might only involve some information gathering, maybe even just basic recon. Another factor is that there are usually multiple PCs, with somewhat disjoint agendas. So in any given scene it is usually more likely than not that a given player is simply supporting someone else's agenda. Ideally the scene speaks to everyone in SOME degree, but it may be pretty tangential to some character's interests.

So, from a player perspective, things may be only episodically really a crisis for THEM. Imagine a 4e game. Each level of play notionally consists of 10 encounters with 1 or maybe 2 long rests separating them into 'adventuring days'. Lets imagine that each day fully engages the agendas of 2 of the 5 PCs (the rest perhaps resolve a minor quest). On average each character will engage directly slightly less than once per level of play, or maybe a bit more than that depending on details of pacing and structure. Lets call it 'once per level'. This, IME, is about how 4e works. Each character gets the 'spotlight' one time at each level of play, and engages in a crisis at that time, maybe roughly every 10 encounters will be about them specifically and exclusively. The rest of the time they'll be supporting cast to a certain extent.

We weren't talking about spotlight time, but how play engages various kinds of agency. Spotlight time isn't something unique to either playstyle, nor is it engaged with any real difference between the two.

OK, I understand what you are saying. I'm just saying that, in practice, what this amounts to is not that a character is at some pivotal point, a 'make or break' in every scene. As I noted above, this is probably typically in actual play not much the case at all. Each scene is significant to someone and will define where their story goes next, but often the 'crisis' may be pretty tactical in nature. Consider LoTR, the Fellowship could go over Caradharas, through the Gap of Rohan, or into the Mines of Moria. They eventually chose the later option. No doubt a different choice, assuming it was successfully resolved, would have led to a similar story later on. The fundamental shape of the conflict wasn't altered by the failure to use the Pass of Caradharas, Frodo still needed to travel to Mt Doom and cast the One Ring into the fire.

The decision on which route to take wouldn't be a question generally framed into a scene by the GM, though. As you've said, that's a free play setup question, not a scene. Once the Fellowship chose the Mines, the GM of the Ring clearly framed the confrontation with the goblins which spiraled out of control into the confrontation with the Balrog, which had a serious consequence for the Fellowship (and Gandalf's player in particular).

 

[Campbell]

Here's what my experience coming from Apocalypse World and other games I have run using similar techniques has shown me: When you define characters first and then define the world around them the level of setting depth that develops around things is dependent on proximity to the characters - both geographically and logically. You might have only a feint idea of what is happening over in Bosnia, but you know that girl with the cute nose ring at the local coffee shop just quit. You really liked her. You might have some idea of why the elves left the forest, but you know why the king put your brother in the dungeon. You also get to kind of explore the world together as time goes on and we are forced to author new stuff so we have interesting stuff to play through.

It's a really big deal to me that characters feel connected to the foreground of the setting. That they are more than just individuals. A character needs to have drives, relationships, a family, and a place in the world. I find that building the world up around the characters makes this much easier to accomplish than going the other way around.

 

[Maxperson]

But I am talking about a system that has finality of resolution: success means that the intent of the action declaration is realised.

I am also talking about a system in which stakes are express or implicit in the framing and the context of resolution: there are not unrevealed backstory elements that mean that an action resolution success might nevertheless mean that the PC actually goes backwards in achieving his/her goal (compare [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s example upthread of the mage who charmed the NPC trying to preserve civic order, only to unknowingly make an enemy of the duke).

"Added challenge', in the context of GM manipulation of backstory together with an absence of finality in resolution, can be opaque to the player, may emerge or manifest itself at any time, and is not amenable to risk mitigation (as per some recent posts not far upthread).

But in your example there was no finality of resolution. You told me that failure meant the feather was cursed, and that even if he succeeded, he still needed to get the feather enchanted and more. If if the player's roll had succeeded in your example, there wouldn't have been any final resolution.

I don't remember seeing his example, but in your description here, the player didn't go backwards. The goal was civic order and the charm would seem(hard to tell without the original example) to have achieved or helped move that forward. The duke as an enemy would a new, but separate issue

So there are two approaches to framing, if the player has as a goal for his/her PC "I will find an item to help confront my balrog-possessed brother before leaving town":

(1) The GM tells the player "You're in a bazaar, with a peddler offering an angel feather for sale. What do you do?"

(2) The GM tells the player "You're in the town. What do you do?​

The content in (1) itself reflects player agency - it is the GM directly engaging the player's statement of dramatic need. The content in (2) does not.

Suppose, following (1), the player declares some action in relation to the feather: I offer 3 drachmas for it or I read its aura to learn what useful magical traits it has. The upshot of these are not just the GM telling stuff to the player. It is the player establishing salient content of the shared fiction. If the offer to buy succeeds, the PC now owns the feather. If the attempt to read the aura succeeds, the PC learns of a useful trait the feather has. Conversely, if the check fails then an adverse consequence ensues - in this case, the feather is Resistant to Fire but also cursed.

Suppose, following (2), the player says "I look for a bazaar". If the GM simply says "yes", then the only difference that I see from what I described is that we spend 5 minutes of play getting to the action. It's certainly not the case that the player had to "work" for it in any other sense of "work".

If the GM says "No, there are no open markets in this town" then we already have hitherto unrevealed backstory being used by the GM to drive the direction of play. The player now has to start making other moves that will get the GM to tell him/her the stuff necesaary to get to where the action is. (Eg "OK, so I look for a curio shop instead" or "OK, I look for a wizard's tower" or whatever.)

And if the GM calls for a check (say, Streetwise), then what happens if it fails? Now the focus of play is not on what the player has flagged (ie finding a useful item) but on something the GM has decided to make a big deal of (ie finding a place where items might be sold). Again, the player now has to start declaring different moves that (whether via the GM saying "yes", or due to successful checks) that eventually result in the Gm describing the PC as being in a place where a potentially useful item is on sale. It's all that stuff that I describe as making moves whose purpose is to get the GM to say more stuff about the gameworld.

There are a number of things here. First, with your example (1), outside of the very first moment of a campaign, you would be railroading the player if you did that. I don't know if during gameplay you just put PCs into places and tell them what they are doing, but if you do, that would be railroading. It removes the option from the player to go anywhere else.

Second, with option 2, there will usually be more to it than "you're in the town. What do you do?" Were that my game and I knew the player was going into the town to try and find an item to free his brother, I would address that in my question. It would more likely be "You walk through the gates of Waterdeep to find something that will help you free your brother. This place is well known for having just about everything somewhere, so it's seems certain that you can succeed." I'm not going to ask him what he wants to do most of the time, since it's pretty obvious that he is going to tell me what he wants to do. I may not railroad him into the bazaar and stick him in front of an object, but I am addressing his goal. It's also more than just 5 minutes of play getting to the action, and but that I don't mean that it necessarily takes longer. I am allowing him more player agency by not forcing him into the bazaar. He can try to seek the bazaar, a wizard, a sage, looking for a merchant guild, look for an old merchant buddy(depending on circumstances) that might have a contact, and many more options. HE gets to decide how best to try and further his goal.

I also do not agree that calling for checks, etc. when trying to find an item shifts the focus of play away. The goal is still the focus, even if there are intermediate steps and sometime setbacks through failed rolls, just like in your game with the failed roll making the feather cursed. When I decide to walk around the block to the store instead of driving, deciding to cut through an alley instead of going to the corner doesn't alter the focus of my journey or change my goal. If I walk past someone who says hi to me(rare in Los Angeles, but it does happen), pausing to say hi delays me(setback), but also doesn't shift my goal or the focus of my journey.

All RPGing involves conversation. In this post just above, and in many earlier posts, I have tried to make it fairly clear what I am talking about.

Investigation and exploration, in the sense that (eg) [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] talks about them, mean the players making moves that have no result but the GM relating more stuff about the gameworld (either read from notes, or made up on the spot but having the same status as if it were read from notes). Paradigms of this sort of RPGing are CoC modules and "story"-style D&D modules like Dead Gods.

The player trying to find a marketplace or a wizard or a curio shop that might sell items is, in a GH-driven game, almost certainly going to be this sort of RPGing.

What I am contrasting it with is action declaration whose success or failure doesn't simply change what the players know about the shared fiction, but actually changes the content of the shared fiction in some salient fashion - eg I search the study for the map, if it succeeds, yields the result that the PC has found the map; or I read the aura of the feather to identify any useful traits, if it succeeds, yields the result that the feather has useful traits; etc.

So in your style of game the players just pop around from place to place only ever doing something relevant to the story? There's never any interaction where the fiction won't change? That's very railroady. The player shows up at a bazaar, because you determined that his chance to change his fiction would be there, not because the player through his agency decided to go to the bazaar instead of a sage or wizard guild.

In my style, the players have more agency to affect their goals. They determine which way to pursue things and they do change the fiction in meaningful ways. It's just not an instant gratification process. It may take 5 scenes to complete the change in fiction that they are initiating. It's often slower(and often not), but allows them greater agency over the fiction by giving them far more options in how they go about enacting that change.

Well, in the first session of my BW game - the one with the angel feather - the PCs interacted with a sorcerous cabal, its local leader Jabal, and a peddler who had purchased various items from a dishevelled man whom they later saw in Jabal's tower.

As [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] said, this sort of stuff doesn't depend upon pre-authorship.

Or is depth a reference not to the actual possibility of story elements, but rather something about their emotional resonance with the participants?

As I've already acknowledged in prior posts, your method does allow for some small amount of depth by going back to things previously authored in the campaign. When the game world is fleshed out, you have much more depth of world to draw upon as both the DM and the player to add to the story. There is still a great deal of improvisation involved with my style of play, though. Even the Forgotten Realms, with all the pre-authored material it has, has only pre-authored less than 5% of the world and its inhabitants. That little bit of pre-authorship is an aid that enhances the story being woven by the DM and players.

You haven't really said anything about how you would adjudicate the attempt to free the brother. How do you establish if a shop (or market, or wizard, or whatever) has a useful item? How do you determine what counts as a useful item?

What sort of check would be involved?

How do I establish if a shop or whatever has a useful item? Generally with a roll of some sort. Sometimes, depending on circumstance there won't be a roll involved. As 5e mentions, you only roll when the outcome is in doubt. If the player is looking for a useful item in a flower pot store, the answer will be that there is no useful item there. If the player has gone to someone the game has already determined would have items of the sort sought, the answer will be yes. For the rest I determine the chances or DC, depending on the type of roll, and I leave it to chance. The type of check will vary. As for what counts as a useful item, I don't really understand that question. Useful is useful. If an item is useful, it will count as a useful item. If not, not.

It's clear to me that, to you, the difference between the GM reading from notes and the GM making stuff up and giving it the same status as if it was on his/her notes is important.

A long way (as in, many many hundreds of posts) upthread I explained why I don't see the difference as that significant. It's because, as long as the GM treats this made-up stuff as if it were in his/her notes, player action declarations really have the status of suggestions for what the shared fiction might contain. There is no robust resolution with finality.

Whereas you seem to regard it as very important that (unlike what you would call a railroad) the GM is taking suggestions.

I don't get how that's clear to you. I've said more than once that to the PC, there is no difference between coming from notes and authored on the spot. To the player, there also isn't much of a difference, except that stuff drawn from the world adds to depth and often, because so much is improvised anyway, the players don't know what is notes and what isn't. Writing down that the innkeeper's name is Darmak and that he's a half-orc fighter with one arm is no different that coming up with it on the spot as far as the players are concerned. In either case the innkeeper will be a one-armed half-orc named Darmak. In neither case has their agency been infringed by his creation.

You also seem to be under the mistaken impression that if I write something down in my notes, that it can't change. Written things are not final. Player/PC actions will quite often affect how written down notes work. I'll give you an example from my last game using the 3e rules.

The players arrived in a town after using an ability to go seeking an adventure where they would be able to help people and increase their fame. I grabbed a scenario from an old dungeon magazine that involved a small town being afflicted by a disease that was turning the inhabitants into humanoid ooze creatures. As I mentioned up thread, I will use scenarios and build dungeons in response to the players' goals.

The scenario was written with specific ways to identify people who were afflicted and what sorts of actions those under the effects would react to the PCs. As it happens, though, one of the PCs had the scent ability, which completely upended that portion of the scenario. Rather than sticking to what was written and railroading things as you indicate my style likes to do, I tossed out the written notes and improvised. The PC was able to smell the differences between those townsfolk and use that knowledge to cause that portion of the scenario played out very differently than what was written.

What I write down is nothing more than an idea of how things might play out. How things usually play out is very often different.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not CONVINCED BTW that Story Now worlds 'lack depth' that is present in other games. I think, in practical terms, there's not a big divide there, but the subtopic is "What is the ideal dividing line between established elements and an open 'blank slate' world?" (maybe you can formulate the question more precisely or in a better way, feel free).

I think genre, and tone, do a LOT of work here. If we're playing a game of Noire detective stories then there's likely to be a Moll, a Damsel in Distress, a Hardbitten but Romantic PI, some bad guys, a fairly direct-seeming surface plot linking them together, and usually a nasty plot-twist somewhere along the way. There are likely to be subthemes of romanticism, betrayal, 'life is cheap', a sort of cynical world where people do things for selfish reasons, etc.

So, a GM running this game would have access for scene framing to an urban landscape, characters such as cops, detectives, thugs, probably various women who play the parts of romantic interest and/or victim (and/or betrayer) etc. They will appear in the various scenes as needed, probably starting with the classic "PI in his office having a drink while contemplating his eviction notice when a damsel walks in" or something along those lines. The exact details would depend on who the characters are, and how they're described. The choices would be fairly limited in this genre though, as its a pretty niche one.

This is the difference. If you are setting the stage in a player-facing game, you make up those details as you go along and they fit the general theme, but that's it. If, however, you set it in Harry Dresden's Chicago, instead of the story leading to a stadium, it leads to Wriggly Field. Instead of it being some bad guys, it's now some of John Marcone's thugs(or some other group). They can meet some of the named cops during the course of the adventure, instead of random cop with name #s 1, 2 and 3. In the player facing game, you have theme, and in the DM facing game, you have theme + depth of world. What value you place on world depth will vary from individual to individual. Personally, as a player, I really like being able to tell the bad guys that I will make the trade at midnight at Millennium Park, rather than "the park" or just coming up with a park name.

I wouldn't think there would be a HUGE benefit to inventing endless details about 'the city'. It would be mostly urban backdrop. There might be a 'bar', an 'office', some dark alley, a warehouse, a few street scenes, etc. They can generally be described without needing to refer to the exact layouts of the neighborhood, roads, etc. Now and then it might be useful to know some physical details of a location in order to adjudicate action (fictional positioning) but mostly that's going to exist so as to serve the dramatic needs of the story (IE if the main character wants to slip out the back way then the bar has a back door and a check will resolve whether or not he makes it to the back alley without being intercepted).

It's not about endless details, though. Even in the Realms, Waterdeep doesn't come close to having endless details and it is one of, if not the most detailed city they've talked about. It lists some details, and leaves the vast majority is a blank canvas.

Obviously this sort of game WILL have some kind of central plot points that engage with the 'detective fiction' motif. There will be a 'murder' or 'robbery' or something that needs to be solved. The need to resolve this plot element will help to drive the scene framing. I would say that in this kind of game the GM would be very likely to establish the parameters of this element at the start in his mind, so that any clues and developments are logically connected to it. This is a genre constraint essentially, film noire plots are generally logically plausible and fairly coherent, and resolving the 'mystery' is, if not an actual player goal, at least part of the convention they are participating in and a structure-producing device. So, as a GM I would invent the main participants in the 'crime', its motivation, how and where it was executed, etc. I might not nail all these things down in ironclad details though. For example you could invent witnesses, alter or invent some of the details where it fits into the plot, etc. I think you'd also likely have plot twists and such in mind from the start, but these things could well be invented or altered on the fly if the narrative moves in a different direction than envisaged.

So, for this example, there's likely SOME 'world building', characters are invented, locations defined, and some plot elements mapped out, ahead of time. I think this is probably the sort of case that is most amenable to this kind of prearranged elements. Most other genre can be a bit looser.

When I build an adventure, that's all I really do as well. I have a very loose outline with the bolded portions, and then fill in the rest as we go. However, I also set most of my games in the Forgotten Realms, so there is always the pre-authored content of that campaign setting in the background for the players and myself to draw upon.

 

[Lanefan]

I only created the 'example' in order to exemplify how far from the norm of RPG play it is to posit characters who sit around doing nothing. IIRC it was perhaps [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] who originally asked a question like "what happens when the players don't want to engage in any agenda" and the line of discussion from there was in the vein of "why would this make sense as a game?"

Close, but not quite.

What I asked was more like "what happens if the players don't have an agenda". Nothing about whether they're willing to engage with one if it wanders by in front of them; theyre probably all set for that, they just don't have an agenda of their own and aren't interested in coming up with one...or (and this is more where I come from) want to wait until the game is nicely under way and see if anything suggests itself from the run of play.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

What I asked was more like "what happens if the players don't have an agenda". Nothing about whether they're willing to engage with one if it wanders by in front of them; theyre probably all set for that, they just don't have an agenda of their own and aren't interested in coming up with one...or (and this is more where I come from) want to wait until the game is nicely under way and see if anything suggests itself from the run of play.

All I'm saying about this, in the current context of discussion, is that it is clearly not a case of the players exercising agency over the content of the shared fiction. I don't see how that can be controversial!

An agenda wanders in front of them = the GM exercises some agency!

 

[Campbell]

Close, but not quite.

What I asked was more like "what happens if the players don't have an agenda". Nothing about whether they're willing to engage with one if it wanders by in front of them; theyre probably all set for that, they just don't have an agenda of their own and aren't interested in coming up with one...or (and this is more where I come from) want to wait until the game is nicely under way and see if anything suggests itself from the run of play.

Lanefan

The first answer is that creating a character with some sort of driving force is a requirement for play. It's part of character creation in most of these games. A Burning Wheel character's Beliefs are as much a part of character creation as generating their stats. Same goes for Aspirations in New World of Darkness or Intimacies in Exalted 3 or a Kicker in Sorcerer.

The second answer is a social one. As a player you are expected to contribute to the game by playing a character with Beliefs they are willing to fight for. You wouldn't create a D&D character who wanted to traipse about town all session instead of going where the monsters live to steal their stuff. It's the same deal.

Also, the GM is not obligated to provide your character with a motivation. You are. I can help you come up with one if you are having trouble doing so, but it is ultimately on you. You provide the protagonism. The GM provides the antagonism.

Note: Apocalypse World and Blades In The Dark are a little different here. They tend to be more exploratory. We want to find out what your character believes over time rather than testing beliefs or going after aspirations.